


Seven Years

by TwistaLolita



Category: Dead Space
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Medical Procedures, Medication, Multi, Polyamory, See above shit, Self-Acceptance, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-27
Packaged: 2018-05-15 16:53:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5792401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwistaLolita/pseuds/TwistaLolita
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of drabbles written for Dead Space spanning through all three games. They're not in chronological order - just posted as they come.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Skeletal Muscle

It takes Isaac three months to eat meat again.

There was something about the way it gleamed, the way it sizzled and smelled and  _bled_  that makes his stomach churn. His therapist assured him it was a situational taste aversion, picked up from what he had been through the past four years - completely understandable, and totally reversible given time.

The assurance does little to assuage the guilt he feels when he has to excuse himself to throw up in the bathroom of an expensive restaurant ( _they had planned this for months_ ) on his first real date with Ellie. Something about the way the steak shred between his teeth, muscles of a previously living thing torn apart under the pressure of his jaw…

It takes him even longer to get a full night of sleep again. Nightmares of needles and skin, of dead girlfriends and children’s rhymes wakes him up with a cold sweat and sheets around his neck. The noises of the neighbors above and below would send him into a panic of fluttering pulses and shaking hands ( _where’s my gun_ ). The people around him seemed to look at him in a way, akin to an observer to a work of art. Muted awe, practiced incredulity, and an underhanded curiosity. His name was whispered in alleys, at bars underneath the safe din of conversation, in the booth next to he and Ellie when they went out to eat sometimes.

When they tried to be normal.


	2. #0

The fingers that grip his shoulder tremble with revelation. 

Isaac doesn’t initially hear him through the haze of the medication that makes the world heavy. He doesn’t know how long he’s been staring at the wall in front of him - it could be seconds or hours. Time has ceased to be a concept that his brain can comprehend - all he can see are the fucking _symbols_.

The slap to his face serves to ground him.

“Isaac. Isaac!” There’s a light in Stross’s eyes at Isaac’s growl. “They call you Patient Four, but I know…I know your real name. They don’t care, but I do…” He raises a shaking hand to Isaac’s face, and the pads of his fingers trace a map down the uneven patches of stubble.

Isaac senses a substance to this tangent, to this invasion of his space, but when he opens his mouth to speak, it’s static in his ears. An automatic transmission from somewhere deep in his head.

_The nightmare is over but it will not end._

_Sympathetic alpha wave attenuation._

_Twinkle, twinkle little star…_

“Yes! Yes yes yes.” Stross leans in even closer now, his nose almost brushing the tip of Isaac’s. The grip on his face tightens and his words come out in broken anticipation. “Y-you see them too, right? Hear them?”

There’s a moment between his sentences, pauses to look over his shoulder and evaluate the volume of his words before he decides to lower his voice. “T-the symbols.”

Isaac’s head bows slightly - the semblance of a nod through an airy head and a heavy tongue. Stross’s words hang in the air, in his ears like a tune stuck in his head - there’s something so distant about his lips, about the residual secrecy in his tone. A poisonous clairvoyance.

But there’s an understanding between them, about the secrets they keep, something that the machine can’t get to and the medication can’t take away. That covenant of the words that slice through their heads…

It’s  _theirs_.


	3. Do Not Tell Me to Sleep

_Do not tell me to sleep._

He dreams in sound and memories of things he cannot change.

There are words that he can only see in his daydreams, fragments of ideas shaped into color and serif.

The lights are too bright.

_Do not tell me to sleep._

He hasn’t seen the bottom of the coffee pot in a week.

The bathroom tiles are slick with things that are not steam and he’s not sure if he should be scared.

He doesn’t remember what it’s like to go to bed without counting to ten.

_Do not tell me to sleep._

Bodies are not to be trusted - not even his. Or his. Or hers.

Stay away from the vents.

Stay away from the vents.

_Do not tell me to sleep._

He’s only thrown up once this week.

He can see the whites on his nails again.

The skin on his fingers have stopped bleeding.

The razors whisper across stubble and not across skin today.

…

_Maybe it’s not so bad._


End file.
